Friday January 27, 2006(Audio) Homily by Fr. Robert AltierThird
Week in Ordinary Time

Reading (2 Samuel 11:1-4a, 5-10a,
13-17)Gospel (St. Mark 4:26-34)

In the first reading today, we hear the very well known and tragic
story about the fall of David, as his lust overcomes him and his idea of power
in being the king is such that he thinks he can just send and have this woman
come to him, and then, of course, violate her as he did. And that not being
enough, he then has her husband murdered in order to try to cover up his own
sin. Tomorrow in the reading, we will hear how God sends Nathan the prophet to
tell David that he knows exactly what had happened. At that point, we see the
repentance of David for what happened.

But we also see a typically human problem, and we also see a problem we
are having in a very profound way today. The typically human thing is to try to
hide what it is we have done.We know
what we have done is wrong and we are ashamed of what we have done, so we try
to hide it. It does not work. Remember what we heard yesterday in the Gospel,
that there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed. The Lord has come
precisely to bring the things of the darkness out into the light so we will be
able to be free of them. Rather than try to hide the things we have done, we need
to make sure we bring it all to the Lord – that it is confessed, that it is out
– so that we can be forgiven and the stuff can be removed from our souls. Then
we can be free. We have to understand that as long as we keep all this hidden
inside, the devil is able to have a field day with us because he can hold it
against us. But as long as we get it out and we confess our sins, the devil has
no authority because we will simply be able to acknowledge that we have already
confessed it and God has forgiven us.

The other half of the problem we are dealing with today in the nature
of sin, and we see this particularly in our young people, is that something is
only a sin if you get caught. In other words, you can go ahead and do whatever
you want, as long you do not get caught. But the sin was to get caught, not the
act of having sinned. We have everything backwards. A lot of the young people
today, because of the circumstances of the TV set and the video games and the
movies and all the things they do, their consciences are so numb to what is
right and wrong that the ultimate sin in today’s society is getting caught.
That is the only thing wrong for a young person: not having committed a sin,
but getting caught.

And that is part of what we see with David. He tries to hide what he
did, he does all of these things that are completely wrong trying to cover up
his own sin, but then God sends the prophet to David to be able to say, “You
are the man. You are the one who did this.” At which point, David repents. He acknowledges
what he did, and in that acknowledgement he is forgiven. But that is where the
problem comes for a lot of people today; rather than acknowledging the sin they
committed, their problem is that they think the sin was to get caught.
Therefore, they are not exactly sorry for what they did; they were just sorry
they got caught in what they did.

So we see we have an awful lot of work to do to help people get their
consciences straight, to be able to recognize what is truly right and wrong. In
fact, rather than thinking that being caught is such a horrible sin (it is not
at all, of course), what we have to help them understand is that this is truly
a gift because God loves them so much that He is trying to get through to them.
He allows them to be caught in these ways specifically so they can recognize
what it is they have been doing. Now that is hard stuff, but when we look at
it, we have to understand it is pure mercy. What would happen if these kids
would die with their numb consciences, thinking everything they did they got
away with because they did not get caught, and so they are unrepentant for the
things they have done? God in His mercy (and, I suspect, in answer to the
prayers of a lot of moms) allows these kids to be caught in doing what they are
doing precisely in order to try to shake them up, to wake them up, so they can
begin to distinguish what the real sin was, and hopefully even to be repentant
for the sins they have committed, rather than to think their big mistake was
that they did something which allowed themselves to be caught.

That is the part we have to be able to provide; not only to be a good
example to the young, but also to provide some basic and sound teaching so they
can begin to form their consciences properly, so that their consciences will no
longer be formed by Hollywood, but hopefully will be formed by the Gospel and
the Catechism so they will be formed according to the truth, not according to
some agenda that somebody else is trying to push upon them. It is an uphill battle
at this point because it has not been done for a long time. Yet the need is
great. In fact, the need is grave at this point because a lot of young people
have been swept up in the tide which has caused them to have no conscience at
all. So we have to pray because if they will be able to acknowledge their sin,
they will be able to be forgiven as David was, and as we are. All of us have
sinned, all of us have fallen short, but God’s mercy is bigger than we are. We
need to beg His mercy not only for the forgiveness of our sins, but that we, as
well as everyone else, will be able to see our sinfulness, that we will have
the humility and courage to acknowledge our sinfulness so that we can be
forgiven, so that our sins will be removed forever.

e is telling us, Thisi s what I want, but I
want

*This text was
transcribed from the audio recording of a homily by Father Robert Altier with minimal editing.